The evolution of the real estate market in Romania from 1990 to 2008

This is a subject that I’d like to talk about for hours. J

 

Actually, Romania is the country of all possibilities (, or it used to be).

In 1990, one could buy a 1 bedroom flat for $ 1500, now in 2008; guess how much someone will pay for that same flat?

I won’t tell you right away

 

Anyway, everything in Romania used to be dirt cheap from food, clothes to real estate. Nobody was interested in Romania. All the westerners used to be disgusted when even thinking about visiting Romania. All they knew about, it was Ceausescu the dictator and some of them heard about Dracula thanks to the famous writer.

When I first went to Belgium in 1991, I told people about Romania and its yet undiscovered business potential. Some of them ask me if in Romania exists television, beer and cigarettes, and more sadly most of the westerners genuinely believed that Budapest it was the capital of Romania.

For years the country had been ignored, only some adventurers dared to come to Romania and make some investments. For some it worked out for others it didn’t. The system was still corrupted in that time, and still is but not to that degree.

Very few companies invested in land and in buildings.

Along the years, slowly but steady the real estate prices increased and by 2000 the price of a flat increased to $ 15,000. That is 10 times more in comparison to 1990’s prices.

So put it this way: if an international company would have invested in Romania let say for the argument sake 100 million of whatever, in 10 years they would have made a billion! Guess what, some people did.

 

As far as I remember before 2000, the land in Bucharest used to be few dollars per square meter.

 

Now it is not only scarce, but it also costs up to 5000 Euros per square meter; same story with the land from Bucharest’s surroundings.

Starting with 2005, there was a huge booming in the real estate prices. Flats, houses, villas, land; they all doubled and tripled in price.

Since then… they still do.

Therefore, to cut the story short, the value of the $ 1500 flat from 1990 is now between 100,000 – 120,000 Euros, not dollars

Would you like to invest in Romania? Nope, I didn’t think so

 

However, I did invest in 2004, first in flats (or should I say 1 flat?), and then in land. The whole amount invested was around $ 35,000.

That investment it is worth now around half million Euros. I wish I had more money to invest in that time, and I also wish to have convinced more people to do the same.

Yeah, but what can you do?

For those interested in Romania, I’ll get back on this subject in my future posts.